Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Studying Ideas Of Evil

When discussing good and evil, it’s easy to dismiss them as “just words” or “the same actions from different perspectives”. It’s easy to not explore them because moral relativism says that good and evil are dependent upon your personal beliefs. And technically speaking, that is true. However, it is important to explore these concepts. For example, I recently heard this said:

“Evil is the use of force to get what you want. The second you decide that coercion is ok, that’s evil.”

This struck me when I heard it. To make people do what something they do not want to do in order to get something you want sounds resoundingly evil. Amongst humanity, collective well-being seems to always be the most virtuous and noble principle. Anything that is selfish, by which I mean harming the collective well-being for personal gain, is almost invariably evil.

One could argue that "the use of force to get what you want" is the same thing as "might makes right", and that it is a perfectly valid morality. However, one could also argue against it, saying that the only people who believe such things are those who benefit from it.

But the point here is that the arguments could be made on both sides. And this is precisely why they should be explored.

About Me

I am a writer. A writer is one who writes.
By the same logic, I am also a thinker, an observer, and a puzzle solver.
I am a graduate from the State University of New York at Cortland with a degree in Professional Writing. The idea of the program is that one studies all three aspects of writing as a whole: Creative Writing, Technical Writing, and Rhetoric. The knowledge I have gained in those subjects is put to use in every aspect of my life.
The worst thing a person can be is boring. I am most interested in people who can pique my interests. An example is people who can correctly use the word 'pique'.